The second problem concerns the tracks. They seem way too narrow for me, and there are elevation changes there that aren't right. I've been around Daytona at about 160mph as a passenger in the #36 M&M's car, and I can tell you that going over the start finish line in Daytona is not like going up and down over a big crest. And the track definitely felt a lot wider in real life than in this game. That's just wrong. Similar odd elevation changes were seen elsewhere. Furthermore, the default point of view in the car doesn't give you a good enough glance at the inside of the track, which is where you're looking while you're entering a corner as well as watching for the outside wall up the road as you begin to exit. On the bright side, "bumpiness" seems to be modeled quite nicely.

In terms of graphic prettiness and performance, I was pretty satisfied. With a 1.7 Ghz Pentium IV and a GeForce 4 4200, I get 40 fps at 1024x768x32 with most details on with a full 42 car field. I'm pretty happy with that. Of course it's never as fast as I want it. The other problem is that there does appear to be some regular frame rate jitter where it seems like the computer freezes for a fraction of a second -- just barely enough to be noticeable and annoying. The audio is excellent, in my opinion. Definitely brought me back to the sound of being in the car I had while at Daytona. The sound is rich and not overly synthetic.

The car handling will definitely go off as you use up the tires, and in each case started to push quite a bit. I couldn't get in the throttle as early off the corners because the car would just push out to the wall. Holding my line inside an AI car took supreme patience. Also, the wind resistance and tire scrub don't seem to bleed speed fast enough through corners. I had to gently touch the brake on courses I didn't feel I should have to brake for. The brake sensitivity is also not great, as even at minimum sensitivity, very little brake could be applied without leaving rubber and smoke behind you.

Speaking of AI, there is an aggressiveness slider in addition to the difficulty slider. At about 90% aggressive, I felt there was a pretty good balance. The AI cars generally hold their line, but they will press you a bit if you try to squeeze under them, and will try to move up high coming off the corners, trying to prevent you from taking them high down the straight. The other cars do wobble a bit more than in real life. This can cause some tension as you're not quite sure whether the wobble is the start of a 'move' or just general bumpiness on the track. The cars don't look too robotic, though. They don't form orderly rows and go around in circles. They do look a lot like people jockeying for positions, so the car patterns look realistically dispersed.

Now we get to the meat of the game, the actual race experience. I think a fine example of what's good and bad about the game in its present form is the 3rd race of my season at Las Vegas. At 90% difficulty, I took the pole with about 4/10ths of a second to spare. At the start of the race, I pulled away and opened up about a 10 second lead, at perhaps half a second per lap. It was getting pretty boring. Sure enough, the tires eventually started to go away on me and I had to slow up to avoid pushing up into the wall. The whole time I'm given no indication of how many laps are left in the race. I do see how many laps I've used up each couple of times past the start finish line, but I never see my speed while in the car, nor the interval to the car in front of me. The only way to get that info is to try to watch the three-at-a-time list of the top several cars each couple of laps, and you can't very well do that while driving! Luckily, since I was in first, I could easily spot the gap between me and the 2nd place car each time the banner came up.

Then my gas warning shows up on the car and I dutifully pit for fuel. None of the other cars do. Hmm. I did have the gas consumption set to 3x normal, since my race was 1/3rd distance. I try to be nice and slow entering the pit before the autopilot takes over, runs the nicely animated pit stop and in 15 seconds I'm out. But as I exit pit lane, I'm informed that I have exceeded the 45 mph speed limit! So not only have the AI cars not pitted, but now I'm in trouble here! I get the 'drive through' penalty call. I work my way around the track as fast as I can without causing an accident, slow to a crawl and re-enter pit lane. The autopilot takes over and I'm assuming it's going to run me through for my penalty. NOPE! It pits me again, and all my stuff is changed all over again, and I'm sent out, and not a word more about the penalty! Um, okay...so penalties mean free gas & tires? Or the penalty wasn't registered? I'm confused. No, check that. I'm 2 laps down and confused!! See, the AI cars still haven't pitted!

With fresh rubber and feeling a little anxious, I charge. I get back one of my laps and the AI cars finally need fuel and pit. I'm now running 41st but on the lead lap. I tear through the field, not causing any accidents but driving the wheels off the car, visions, the Juan Montoya of NASCAR! Bang! An accident somewhere and a yellow comes out. I wonder idly how many laps are left, but can't think of any clever way of getting a reminder from the game (gee, now I'm thinking the full race distance might be in the game manual, but I don't think of it while driving). I hit the 'instant replay' button and try to cycle through the cars to find the 'accident'. No go. Apparently there is some hack on the Internet that lets you change cars during these replays, but obviously now is not the time to Internet surf, so that file hacking will wait till next time. The game is controlling my car while under caution, and I'm asked if I want to pit. I affirm, since I know I'm going to run out of fuel soon. I'm now at the back again, as the AI cars inexplicably don't exploit the yellow to get gas. This is a recurring theme. They didn't pit for fuel and tires under a yellow flag even once in the entire race. Green flag stops are the way to go, baby! Odd. By my math they should have been in a great position to get fuel. But then, by my math we'd all be running out of fuel at about the same time, so what do I know?